Steve's travels

Steve has just returned from a week in the mid-western hills of Nepal, visiting Tearfund partners and projects in the districts of Surkhet and Dang. Below are a few highlights of the trip.

I took the early morning Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj, for much of the way flying parallel to the majestic snow-covered ridges of the Himalayas which were crystal clear in the low morning sun.  

In Nepalgunj I was met by staff from Tearfund partner, International Nepal Fellowship (INF) – Kamal, (the driver) Pratibha and Sajeeta. Pratibha is INFs outgoing Donor Liaison Officer; my main contact person in INF for the last four years. Sajeeta, a recent graduate whose studies have been supported by Tearfund as part of our professional leadership development programme, is taking over her role.

Three hours in a landrover took us to Surkhet where we had meetings with staff from the community development project that Tearfund supports. We discussed ways in which INF could better measure the impact of their work, and help encourage a more reflective ‘learning culture’ among staff.  I also carried out some spot checks on the INF office’s financial management systems.

Surkhet valley

For the next two days I went further into the hills with project staff and Sajeeta to visit some of the Self Help Groups (SHGs) formed as part of the project. In these poor rural communities, villagers are quite fatalistic and tend to wait for outsiders to come and solve their problems. They don’t generally work together to resolve community issues. INF helps the poorest in the communities to organise themselves into SHGs, and over a period of time their whole attitude changes regarding what they are able to do without outside help, and how they can work together as a community to achieve it.

Meeting a SHG

The SHGs I met were beginning to work together to make improvements to the steep hillside paths (the only way into/out of many communities), clean out dirty water sources and improve basic household and community hygiene - all things they had identified as being the most important issues for them.

Yavraj Sunar, one group member in the community of Laskare said 'We have had NGOs in this area before but they come with their own agenda that they want us to work to. You [the Tearfund-supported INF project] take a different approach and help us to follow our agenda. This means that we all really believe in what we are doing, even if it takes longer for us to see the end result.'

Path to the village of Maikal

After staying a night in one of the communities we headed back to Surkhet and then I left for Dang to visit Tearfund partner 'Community Awakening and Transformation Society' (CATS), a much smaller, younger partner than INF. The format of the trip was the same as before – a day in the office discussing technical issues, checking financial systems and meeting the CATS Board – followed by a day in the communities. 

I first visited Ghorahi, the Dang District HQ, four years ago. It was a depressing experience. The town centre was filthy - full of rubbish, cows wandering freely and defecating in the streets, virtually no greenery - and the small overgrown central park was fenced off as it had become the preferred hangout for local alcoholics and drug addicts. But over the last few years there has been a dramatic transformation. So much so that last year, Ghorahi was awarded first prize in Nepal’s Cleanest Municipality competition!

I met with the Town Council to find out more about this dramatic turn around. They told me 'We always had the idea of cleaning up the town, but it was CATS and the local churches that spurred us into action.'

CATS has been mobilising the churches to carry out mass cleaning campaigns and the example of the minority Christians in their predominantly Hindu society has clearly had a huge impact.

Cleaning up the streets

Out in the countryside I visited Ramana church in the village of Gurje.  The church had previously been busily doing things for the community but the pastor had been getting very discouraged because the community never seemed interested or appreciative. CATS helped the church leaders to analyse the situation and the church decided to take a different approach – working with the community on community-identified priorities, rather than working for the community on things the church had identified. 

The result was a dramatically changed church-community relationship and they are now working together to improve access routes and repair the damaged community water system. The church has been raising funds from its own congregation to spur the local government and non-church community members to make their own contributions towards tackling these community needs.

Chitra, one of the Hindu community leaders, said 'Whenever the church initiates something with the community, it always holds together. But if the church isn't involved, it tends to fall apart.'